I'm well aware that we're already redistributing wealth, I'm simply advocating we do more of it by raising taxes on the wealthy.
If you Google 'economic mobility' you'll come up with a lot of citations supporting the idea that most rich people come from families in the upper reaches of the economic spectrum. Here's a particularly good study that got a lot of press a couple of years ago: http://www.economicmobility.org/reports_and_research/other?i... . Keep in mind that I'm not saying no one goes from being poor to rich, only that it's a minority of the wealthy. One reason that it may seem like there are more is that those stories are more compelling and so get more media attention (who wants to hear about the upper middle class doctor's kid who became a millionaire?), and because Republicans focus on those stories in their campaign rhetoric to deflect taxation on the wealthy.
It would be terrible to die waiting for treatment; fortunately that doesn't happen any more often in Canada than it does in the free-market US (where, until the recent health care reform, insurance companies could arbitrarily drop sick patients altogether).
And contrary to whatever ideas you may have about hospital life, they're really not all that pleasant. Most people stay away from them unless absolutely necessary, to the point that a lot of people (heart patients in particular) don't go when in fact they should. No doubt there are some hypochondriacs who waste doctors' time, but they are hardly justification for throwing up our hands at helping the truly sick who greatly outnumber them.
If you Google 'economic mobility' you'll come up with a lot of citations supporting the idea that most rich people come from families in the upper reaches of the economic spectrum. Here's a particularly good study that got a lot of press a couple of years ago: http://www.economicmobility.org/reports_and_research/other?i... . Keep in mind that I'm not saying no one goes from being poor to rich, only that it's a minority of the wealthy. One reason that it may seem like there are more is that those stories are more compelling and so get more media attention (who wants to hear about the upper middle class doctor's kid who became a millionaire?), and because Republicans focus on those stories in their campaign rhetoric to deflect taxation on the wealthy.
It would be terrible to die waiting for treatment; fortunately that doesn't happen any more often in Canada than it does in the free-market US (where, until the recent health care reform, insurance companies could arbitrarily drop sick patients altogether).
And contrary to whatever ideas you may have about hospital life, they're really not all that pleasant. Most people stay away from them unless absolutely necessary, to the point that a lot of people (heart patients in particular) don't go when in fact they should. No doubt there are some hypochondriacs who waste doctors' time, but they are hardly justification for throwing up our hands at helping the truly sick who greatly outnumber them.